Acoustic time delay estimation and sensor network self-localization: Experimental results

Abstract

Experimental results are presented on propagation, coherence, and time-delay estimation (TDE) from a microphone array in an outdoor aeroacoustic environment. The primary goal is to understand the achievable accuracy of acoustic TDE using low-cost, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) speakers and microphones. In addition, through the use of modulated pseudo-noise sequences, the experiment seeks to provide an empirical understanding of the effects of center frequency, bandwidth, and signal duration on TDE effectiveness and compares this to the theoretical expectations established by the Weiss-Weinstein lower bound. Finally, sensor network self-localization is performed using a maximum likelihood estimator and the time-delay estimates. Experimental network localization error is presented as a function of the acoustic calibration signal parameters.